Politics
MORE reactions have continued to trail the freezing of 10 bank accounts of Oyo State Government for not paying the local government chairmen sacked in 2019 by Gov. Seyi Makinde, as ordered by the Supreme Court.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Justice A. O. Ebong of a Federal High Court, Abuja, had, on Friday, ordered the freezing of the accounts in a proceeding initiated by the former council chiefs.
NAN also reports that the governor had, on May 29, 2019, announced the sack of the council and councilors, an act that was voided by the supreme court on May 7, 2021.
The respondents, who spoke with NAN in Ibadan on Wednesday, said the state government should not have defied the court’s order to pay the sacked council officials.
An Ibadan-based legal practitioner, Mr Adebayo Ojo, who is also a former Attorney-General and Justice Commissioner in Oyo State, described the defiance of the court judgment as embarrassing.
Ojo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), said it implied that the 10 banks would be forced to show their details to the court and deductions made from them and given to the judgment creditors.
“Gov. Seyi Makinde’s advisers should try to talk to him on the need for him to respect the supreme court judgment.
“A similar verdict took place in Katsina but the government of that state obeyed the apex court by paying the salaries and emoluments of the officials.
“By this latest judgment, there is nothing else the state government can do again than to pay the over N3.5 billion to the sacked officials,” Ojo said.
According to him, supreme court verdicts are laws that must be followed in any democratic setting.
A human rights lawyer, Mr Tunde Fatola, berated the Makinde-led administration for foot-dragging on paying the sacked local government officials after a subsisting court judgment in their favour.
He said that the freezing of the 10 bank accounts would, no doubt, dent the good credentials that Makinde had had before now, especially concerning the payment of workers for the festive period.
“If the salary account is one of those frozen, then workers might have bleak celebrations because the state government will not be able to access it.
“Government should have just appealed to the court that it could only afford to pay the sacked officials by installments; there is nothing bad in that,” Fatola said.
Similarly, a legal practitioner, Mr Jubril Mohammed, frowned at the unwillingness of the Makinde-led administration to execute the court pronouncement to pay the former local government officials.
According to Mohammed, with the order of the supreme court, money can be sent into the frozen accounts but no one can withdraw from them.
He advised governments at all levels to stop being selective in obeying courts judgments.
“They must obey court judgments, whether they favour them or not,” he said.
Meanwhile, a member of the Oyo State House of Assembly, Olasunkanmi Babalola (PDP-Egbeda), said that the legislative arm of government could not comment on what he claimed was an executive matter.
“It is a matter that lawmakers can’t comment on. It involves the executive and, as a matter of fact, it is a development that is in court; we won’t be able to talk on it,” he said. (NAN)
Tags: Gov. Seyi Makinde
